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Brooke Shaden is one of a select few artists who manages to consistently create work that is so visceral and resonates so deeply that it makes me want to step into the picture so I can inhabit that world, even for a moment. Her work is sometimes haunting, sometimes dark, sometimes disturbing, but always interesting and challenging enough, both conceptually and technically, that I’ve been a fan for years and am always eager to see what she comes up with next. I’ve wanted to talk to her for a long time and I’m so grateful that we could make this happen. CONNECT WITH BROOKE Website: https://brookeshaden.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brookeshadenphotography Instagram: https://instagram.com/brookeshaden CONNECT WITH JEFFERY Website: https://jefferysaddoris.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jefferysaddoris Instagram: https://instagram.com/jefferysaddoris Music in this episode Normalize by Stanley Gurvich Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, I may earn a commission. Thanks.

 I think Ben Horne and I first talked about recording together in 2018, not long after I was introduced to his work. But as John Lennon famously said, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans” and for one reason or another, we just couldn’t get our schedules in sync, but I am so grateful that we were able to circle back around and make this happen. I am a huge fan of Ben’s work. I think one of his superpowers as a landscape photographer is capturing the quiet drama of big places — subjects and scenes that most of us would simply ignore if we even noticed them at all. It’s beautiful work and I’m happy to finally connect with Ben to talk about it. SHOW NOTES Zion National Park Yosemite National Park Death Valley National Park Colorado Plateau Film Reveal Ben's Portfolio Box Set CONNECT WITH BEN Website: https://www.benhorne.com Twitter: @BenHorne Instagram: @benhornephoto Music in this episode Normalize by Stanley Gurvich What Have We Lost by David James Terry Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist   WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Overcast | RSS | Spotify Tell Your Friends & Share Episodes Online: You can even share a favorite show clip using the terrific Recast feature. I’ve made a video showing you how: Create Custom Audiograms with Recast by Simplecast - YouTube Buy a copy of my book: Photography by the Letter

While I’ve never really done one myself — not intentionally anyway — I am fascinated by long-term creative projects. I find the whole idea of intentionally and purposefully immersing yourself in something you know is going to take years to realize both inspiring and a little terrifying. But I guess if you find the right project, the challenges, obstacles and accidents both happy and unhappy make the journey of bringing whatever it is to life that much more rewarding. Marc Wilson is a photographer in the UK who has completed two such projects back to back. From 2010 to 2014, he produced a body of work called The Last Stand which, in his words “aims to reflect the histories and stories military conflict and the memories held in the landscape itself.” In 2015, after releasing the body of work as a book, he began work on his next project, A Wounded Landscape - bearing witness to the Holocaust, which is based around 22 Holocaust survivor stories. The six-year project, culminating in a 750-page book, was made at more than 160 locations and is told through more than 350 photographs, as well as transcripts of conversations, research and sound. I am so grateful for the opportunity to talk about this powerful and important body of work. SHOW NOTES Kickstarter for A Wounded Landscape - bearing witness to the Holocaust CONNECT WITH MARC Website: https://www.marcwilson.co.uk/ Twitter: @marcwilsonphoto Instagram: @marcwilsonphoto Music in this episode Normalize by Stanley Gurvich Mysa by Laurel Violet Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist   WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Overcast | RSS | Spotify | Google Podcasts Tell Your Friends & Share Episodes Online: You can even share a favorite show clip using the terrific Recast feature. I’ve made a video showing you how: Create Custom Audiograms with Recast by Simplecast - YouTube Buy a copy of my book: Photography by the Letter

In the middle of 2019, Netflix launched a show called Blown Away, which is a competition show for glass artists. The promos looked terrific and I think Adrianne and I were hooked from pretty much the first episode. We binged the whole season and it became our go to recommendation for our Netflix-watching friends. I even reached out to Alex Rosenberg, one of the contestants on the show, who I sat down with for an episode of Process Driven. Fast forward to the beginning of this year when Netflix finally released season two of Blown Away and for the next ten episodes, Adrianne and I were right back in the hot shop with a new group of artists. And just like with season one, I know I wanted to talk to one of the contestants and I knew exactly who I wanted it to be. Both Adrianne and I were fans of Elliot Walker straight away. There was just something about his demeanor in the shop, not to mention that we absolutely loved what he made on the show. I really resonated with his approach to the materials, and the sense of humor he brought to the pieces he was making. I also really connected with how he spoke about his partner Bethany, who is not only his girlfriend, but also his assistant, his muse, and the curator of their gallery, Blowfish Glass. And just so you know, this conversation does contain spoilers. So if you haven’t seen season two, consider yourself warned. SHOW NOTES Blown Away on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80215147 Blown Away on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9908860/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt Alexander Rosenberg on Process Driven: https://jefferysaddoris.com/everything/processdriven-28/ CONNECT WITH ELLIOT AND BETHANY Gallery: https://www.blowfishglassart.com Website: http://ewalkerglassart.co.uk Instagram (Elliot): @ewalkerglassart Instagram (Bethany): @bethjadewood CONNECT WITH ME If you have questions, feedback on the show, or a suggestion for someone you think I should talk to, I’d love to hear from you. Connect with me on Twitter @jefferysaddoris or email me at [email protected] Music in this episode Reconciled by Sean Williams Normalize by Stanley Gurvich Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist   WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Overcast | a href="ht...

In Process Driven 37, I had part one of this two-part conversation with Documentarist, Jack Lowe. And while you don’t need to have listened to part one to enjoy this conversation, I invite you to go back and listen to it if you haven’t. Among other things, we talked about the origins of Jack’s Lifeboat Station Project, which has him traveling to all 238 lifeboat stations around the UK in his mobile darkroom Neena to make photographs with his 12x10 inch wet plate camera. In this conversation, we talk about some of the motivations for the project and the supportive community that has grown around it, as well as what Jack hopes people will take away from the body of work as a whole. And just as we did in part one, we go down a few rabbit holes and, of course, talk a bit more about The Life Aquatic. SHOW NOTES The Life Aquatic CONNECT WITH JACK Website: https://lifeboatstationproject.com Twitter: @ProjectLifeboat Music in this episode Reconciled by Sean Williams Normalize by Stanley Gurvich Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist   WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Overcast | RSS | Spotify | Google Podcasts Tell Your Friends & Share Episodes Online: You can even share a favorite show clip using the terrific Recast feature. I’ve made a video showing you how: Create Custom Audiograms with Recast by Simplecast - YouTube Buy a copy of my book: Photography by the Letter

At the beginning of the year, I released an episode called Setting the Intention for 2021, and one of the things I talked about was how I wanted to make some changes to my shows, both in who I approach to record with and in how I actually produce and edit the episodes, for example using music and sound effects to enhance the ambience or atmosphere of an episode when it’s appropriate and serves the story. The first person I met on the back of all of this was Jack Lowe and I can’t really even tell you where I first heard his name or saw photos from his Lifeboat Station Project - most likely it was something that popped up on Twitter which over the past several months has become a terrific way for me to discover new work and connect with interesting people. Regardless, once I dove into a bit of Jack’s work, I knew I wanted to talk to him.   SHOW NOTES Ambient Isolation: https://www.ambientisolation.com Matthew George Tuckey: @MGTuckey Jack’s Dawn Chorus: https://m.soundcloud.com/mrjacklowe/sets/dawn-chorus Daniel Meadows: https://www.photobus.co.uk Anthony Hopkins' "Be bold...": https://twitter.com/AnthonyHopkins/status/1344008299490861056 JACK'S FIELD RECORDING KIT MixPre-3 II: https://www.sounddevices.com/mixpre/ DPA 6060 Spaced Stereo Pair: https://www.dpamicrophones.com Audio-Technica M40X: https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/ath-m40x CONNECT WITH JACK Website: https://lifeboatstationproject.com Twitter: @ProjectLifeboat Music in this episode: Reconciled by Sean Williams Normalize by Stanley Gurvich Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist   WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Overcast | RSS | Spotify | Google Podcastsbr ...

Like many of you, I could not be happier to finally be rid of the raging dumpster fire that was 2020. I know the next year will be anything but easy, but I am cautiously optimistic that 2021 will be filled with new possibilities and chances to do things a little differently than last year. I started doing yoga about a month ago and Adrianne reminded me that there’s a concept in yoga about setting an intention at the beginning of a practice and while I’m not a fan of resolutions per se, I wanted to share a few things today that I’ve been thinking about for a while as a way of setting my intentions for the year ahead. To that end, I want to let you know about some of the changes that I’m making both personally and professionally moving forward. Let’s start with my shows. Early in 2020 I created a new feed called “Jeffery Saddoris: Everything” as a way for you to get everything I release, including Process Driven, In Between, Iterations, and any sort of one-off conversation, like the recent chat with Bill Wadman, all in one place. The response to that feed has been terrific – in fact subscriptions to the individual feeds have dropped off considerably as subscriptions to Everything have increased. It’s not one to one, but it’s enough that I’m going to deprecate the individual show feeds so that moving forward, I will only be publishing new episodes to Jeffery Saddoris: Everything. If you’re already subscribed to Everything, great. You will continue to get all of the episodes that I release, which should be not only easier to manage under just one feed but also more frequent since I don’t have to try to figure out where a particular conversation fits. If you are subscribed to one or more of the individual show feeds, please subscribe to Everything so you don’t miss anything moving forward. And I want you to know that I’ve thought about this quite a bit. I know there are some of you who might only want to listen to Process Driven and this move might initially feel like kind of a bummer. But, I think the way we listen to podcasts has changed, partially because there are so many. I know it’s definitely changed for me over the last few years. I subscribe to dozens of shows and only a very few do I listen to every episode. Instead, I simply create playlists of the episodes that look interesting to me, and the trends show that I’m not in the minority here. One of the things I’ve struggled with for quite a while is monetizing the work I do – and that goes for all of the work I do, from design work for clients to selling my paintings to whether or not to run ads on my podcasts. And without getting too deep into it here, it all revolves around self-worth and how I assign or ascribe value to the work I do. But I think I’ve come up with a solution that Adrianne and I have been talking about for a while now. A few days ago I tweeted a Venn diagram with creativity on one side and philanthropy on the other and that place in the middle of those two things is where I want to be. So the solution we’ve come up with is that we’re going to donate the majority of any revenue that my creative endeavors generate into arts education and related non-profits. We’ll have details on the actual organizations soon, but the big picture is that this allows me to value the work I do in a way other than what it can do for me. It actually becomes more valuable in that the worth of it directly helps more than just me. I’m incredibly excited about it and again more details are forthcoming but that’s the big picture. I think that’s enough for the moment. As I said, I’ll have more details around all of this in the coming weeks. If you have questions or comments, you can find me on Twitter or Instagram @jefferysaddoris. You can also email me at [email protected].

There are only a handful of photographers whose work is instantly recognizable and fewer still who have become a genre unto themselves. I was first introduced to the pictures of Gregory Crewdson through a body of work called Beneath the Roses. I felt instantly connected to that world he so meticulously crafted and I’ve been a huge admirer of his work ever since. In 2016, I had the opportunity to sit down with Gregory for a conversation about his body of work called Cathedral of the Pines. It was a terrific experience for me, not just because Gregory is one of my favorite photographers, but because it provided a glimpse behind the curtain to a photographic world that I find both moving and familiar. In 2018, Gregory began making photographs for his newest body of work. An Eclipse of Moths continues his exploration of themes like brokenness and isolation as well as a profound connection to light and the encroachment of the natural world. To some that world may seem bleak, especially on first glance — but a deeper look will reveal a narrative that is hopeful and rich with possibility. As we sat down to talk about An Eclipse of Moths, I began by asking him about the geography he revisits again and again and whether his pictures could be made anywhere else or is the place he now calls home a necessary part of his expression as an artist. SHOW NOTES An Eclipse of Moths (with music by Jeff Tweedy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYhGYZCc_hk An Eclipse of Moths (Aperture book): https://aperture.org/books/gregory-crewdson-an-eclipse-of-moths/ Process Driven 05: Gregory Crewdson: https://jefferysaddoris.com/everything/processdriven-05/ CNN Arts Feature: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/gregory-crewdson-photography-eclipse-of-moths/index.html IMAGE DETAILS GREGORY CREWDSON Funerary Back Lot, 2018 - 2019 Digital Pigment Print 56 1/4 x 94 7/8 inches / 142.9 x 241 cm (unframed) Edition of 4, with 2 APs © Gregory Crewdson. Courtesy Gagosian CONNECT WITH GREGORY Website: https://gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/ Instagram: @crewdsonstudio Twitter: @crewdsonstudio MUSIC Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0) This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, I may earn a commission. Thanks.

 I don’t remember how it came up but I was talking to Sean Tucker a while back and we ended up talking about different photographers that we had found recently and he asked me whether I’d seen the work of Maria Lax. Maria is a Finnish photographer based in London who had published a book called Some Kind of Heavenly Fire. Honestly the title alone was enough to pique my interest but what I found beyond it was a fantastic set of images that were inspired by a book her grandfather wrote documenting a series of encounters with UFOs by the locals of the small Finnish town where she grew up. I’ve always had a fascination with UFOs so I was interested straight away and the work beautifully straddles the line between reality and possibility. Maria takes a little X-Files, a bit of Twin Peaks, and maybe even a dash of Todd Hido and turns it into something uniquely her own—and that combination of style and vision is there in both her personal and her commercial work, which is no easy feat. I’d like to thank Tom Booth Woodger at Setanta Books for not only arranging an introduction to Maria but also for providing me a copy of her wonderful book Some Kind of Heavenly Fire. SHOW NOTES Connect with Maria: Website | Instagram Some Kind of Heavenly Fire Setanta Books   Music in this episode: Please Listen Carefully (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0 WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Overcast | Google Podcasts Tell Your Friends & Share Episodes Online: You can even share a favorite show clip using the terrific Recast feature. I’ve made a video showing you how: Create Custom Audiograms with Recast by Simplecast - YouTube Buy a copy of my book: Photography by the Letter

There’s something about wet plate photography that I can’t get out of my head. Maybe it’s the process, maybe it’s the unpredictable nature of it - Sally Mann calls it “the angel of uncertainty.” Or maybe it’s the permanence of the objects themselves. When you look at a plate by Matthew Brady or Timothy O’Sullivan, for a moment you’re no longer part of the present. And I would argue that that sense of timelessness is one of the reasons a handful of modern photographers still choose to embrace the 170-year-old process. In 2018 there was a Sally Mann show at the National Gallery called A Thousand Crossings. It is by far my favorite show I’ve ever seen since I've been in DC and, in fact, I went back to see it about a half-dozen times. While I love her entire body of work, it was the wet plate work—both plates and prints—that I found myself gravitating to the most. Far from the pristine edge-to-edge sharpness of modern photos, they exude life, inexorably binding them to the maker. A couple weeks ago, I got an email form Shane Balkowitsch, a wet plate photographer from Bismarck, North Dakota who began shooting wet plate after seeing a plate of a motorcycle. Something about it refused to let go and he reached out to the photographer to ask about the image and the process behind it. 45 days later, he made his first wet plate—an image of his brother. That was 2012. Today, more than 3500 plates later, Shane’s work is in collections including the State Historical Society of North Dakota and the National Portrait Gallery. His ongoing project photographing Native Americans and helping to preserve their culture has earned him the name “Shadow Catcher.” SHOW NOTES Connect with Shane: Website | Instagram | Facebook Northern Plains Native Americans: A Modern Wet Plate Perspective  Balkowitsch (Documentary) State Historical Society of North Dakota - https://www.history.nd.gov/archives/manuscripts/inventory/2014-P-025.html Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock: https://www.awakethefilm.org/ Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings - https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2018/sally-mann-a-thousand-crossings.html   Music in this episode: Please Listen Carefully (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0 WANT TO SUPPORT THE WORK I'M DOING? Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | a href="https://www.stitcher.